Even though the total number of bets has fallen, betting companies have been saved by something that has always been said in casinos: bettors always find ways to keep betting. Since March, they started to dedicate themselves to virtual games, especially to virtual versions of easily understandable sports, such as football, basketball, and American football.
Many video game publishers don’t know how to handle this change. Industry reports in Europe, where sports betting is very common, indicating that half of the bets placed since the beginning of March are related to electronic sports. Some bookmakers saw a 40-fold increase in the number of eSports bets during that period.
ESports are the leaders at the moment. Since March, they have become our main category worldwide in billing and the number of bets. All bookmakers now offer eSports, even those that have not done so before.
Current trends ‘are gaining momentum’
The options go beyond simple bets on competitions between elite video game players.
Although bets on basketball games still depend on live athletes (in general), humans have become optional. Some companies offer bets on football matches completely automated in the game “Fifa 20”, produced by Electronic Arts – computer versus computer. In the US, DraftKings and FanDuel (which have legalized virtual disputes in about 40 states) have started offering new free disputes based on automated matches from the Madden NFL 20 game, which is also produced by Electronic Arts.
FanDuel and DraftKings, which made their initial public offering in April of this year, also run virtual championships of extremely popular games, such as League of Legends and Counter-Strike. According to reports, e-sports championships are attracting twenty times more customers and 50 times more competitors than in March last year. Like many other things, these trends have been around for a long time, especially on the internet, but are being accelerated by the coronavirus.
States that allow sports betting are still adjusting. With revenue declining in many American states, lobbyists believe that more governments will accept online gambling – especially eSports – as a source of taxable income.
In Nevada, the next step for electronic sports betting is pre-approval of bets on certain virtual championships, in the manner of the NFL and other traditional sporting events, rather than requiring approval on a case-by-case basis. It may take a year or two, but there will inevitably be a list of pre-approved e-sports events for betting in Nevada. This period cemented eSports as one of the top choices for online casinos (온카지노) and bookmarkers.
Altogether, more than 15 states allow some type of sports betting. At the moment, executives say that Colorado, which authorized sports betting on May 1, appears to have the most liberal US rules on eSports.
Betting and e-sports companies believe so far that they do not need to ask the game producers for permission to offer bets or hold championships. And, unlike the major sports leagues that opposed the expansion of betting before the Supreme Court’s decision, no video game producer has attempted to prevent bets related to its products (even though casino executives have reported that an application for a championship in the Overwatch game, produced by Activision Blizzard, was rejected in 2018 by regulators in part because the company was opposed to betting at that time).